PS 3266 



1913 







i^-'* 







WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

A STUDY and INTERPRETATION 



Whittier's ''Snow-Bound'' 

A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 

WITH COMMENTS, OUTLINES, MAPS 
NOTES, AND QUESTIONS 



By 

Lucy Adella Sloan, M.S. 

Head of the Department of English 

Central State Normal School 

Mt. Pleaiantj Michigan 



SLOAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

6819 JEFFERSON AVENUE 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 






\'^ 



\2. 



Copyright 1913 By 
Lucy Adella Sloan 



All Rights Reserved 



Published February 191 3 



Composed and Printed By 

The University ol Chicagro Press 

Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 



.a;!32589 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword 7 

Sketch of Whittier's Life 9 

Comments 18 

The Poem, "Snow-Bound" 21 

Time Outline 47 

Interpretation 48 

Questions 70 

Notes 81 



FOREWORD 

This study and interpretation of "Snow-Bound" has 
been made with the hope that it may help to make the 
poem more known and better loved in the rural and 
graded schools. Its author has had constantly in mind 
the teacher who is burdened with many classes and has 
not had the opportunity to become a trained reader of 
literature, and the many boys and girls who would love 
"Snow-Bound" if they could more fully understand it. 
To such teachers and pupils the work is lovingly dedi- 
cated, with the suggestion that, in most cases, the 
poem be first read straight through by the class, that it 
then be read with the interpretation, stanza by stanza, 
until they can tell the main thread of the thought in 
their own words, after which the questions may be used. 
Above all, let there be much reading of the poem itself, 
and the committing of many passages to memory. 




X WHITTIER FARM 



SKETCH OF WHITTIER'S LIFE 

"Snow-Bound" was written nearly half a century 
ago by John Greenleaf Whittier, the Quaker farmer-poet 
of New England. Mr. Whittier was fifty-nine years Oi 
age when he wrote the poem, and in it he gives an account 
of the doings of his own family, in his own home, during 
a certain stormy week in December when he was a boy 
probably not more than sixteen years of age. 

And where was this farm home located? Notice 
(see map) the narrow, crooked strip of Massachusetts 
lying north of the Merrimac River after it crosses the 
New Hampshire line and turns to the eastward. This 
three-mile-wide strip, we are told by Mr. Pickard, was 
the poet's home during his entire life; and in its soil, in 
the Quaker cemetery at Amesbury, he, with the rest 
of the ''Snow-Bound" household, lies buried. This is 
the Whittier country, the "Snow-Bound" country. 
When Mr. Whittier wrote the poem he was living at 
Amesbury, his home during the last fifty-six years of his 
life. The farm home about which he was writing was 
only nine miles away, to the southeast, near a road run- 
ning between Amesbury and Haverhill. On this farm 
the poet was born, and there he lived until he was 
twenty-nine years old, when the family removed to 
Amesbury. 

Not only was this old farm the poet's own birthplace, 
but at the time the family was snow-bound it had been 
the home of his Whittier ancestors for nearly two 
hundred years. His great-great-grandfather built and 
occupied the farmhouse and died there; also it had been 



WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 




A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION ii 

owned and occupied by his great-grandfather, his grand- 
father, and his father. When they sold the farm and 
moved to Amesbury, Whittiers had lived on that farm 
one hundred and eighty-nine years, in that house one 
hundred and forty-eight years. It means something 
very real to Whittier then, when in the poem he speaks 
of "The old familiar sights of ours," of "The old, rude- 
furnished room," of "The white-washed wall and sagging 
beam." The farm was in a lonesome place surrounded 
by hills and woods in every direction except to the south- 
east, where a small brook that ran near the house found 
its way through level meadows to the Merrimac River 
only a mile and a half away. The house, sometimes 
spoken of as a mansion, was a large one, two and a half 
stories high, and about thirty-six feet square. It faced 
a little to the southeast, toward the valley of the brook, 
and the big kitchen, in which was the eight-feet-wide 
fireplace, was in the rear, on the north side. The house 
was so well built, with its beams of solid oak, that it 
stands today, kept in good repair by lovers of the poet, 
and is visited yearly by hundreds of people. 

The snow-bound Whittier family consisted of eight 
people, four grown-ups and four children. The grown- 
ups were the father and his younger brother Moses, who 
owned and worked the farm together, and the mother 
and her younger sister, Mercy Hussey. This uncle and 
aunt always lived with the Whittier family and were 
most dearly loved by the children. Mary, the "elder 
sister," was a little over a year older than Greenleaf, as 
the poet was called in the home; his brother Franklin 
was five years younger, and Elizabeth, "youngest and 
dearest," was three years younger than Franklin. 
There was a schoolhouse half a mile up the road to the 
north, and here the children, when not snow-bound, and 



12 



WHITTIEKS "SNOW-BOUND" 



when they could be spared from the work at home, went 
to school. The young man who was teaching in the 
Whittier district, during the winter of which the poet 
writes, was snow-bound with the family. 




KITCHEN 



PARLOR 




X 



snriNa 

ROOM 



1 _. \" ^r 

Draivn by a pupil from study of a description in Pickard's "Whittier Land' 



GROUND-FLOOR PLAN OF THE WHITTIER HOME 



The children's winter clothing was of "homespun," 
a cloth made of wool which was spun, woven, and made 
into clothing by the poet's mother and aunt. Although 
of wool, it was loose-meshed and stiff, and as there were 
no overcoats worn by the boys, and no soft, warm under- 
clothing, they often suffered with 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 13 

The chill no coat, however stout, 

Of homespun stu£f could quite shut out, 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 
That checked, mid- vein, the circling race, 
Of life-blood in the sharpened face. 

As soon as they were old enough the children all had 
to help with the work on the farm and in the house, 
the young genius who was to become one of our great 
American poets taking his full share with the rest. But 
evenings, after the chores were done, he wrote rhymes 
and verses on his slate; he also wrote many at school on 
various subjects. 

Such was the family at the time of its being snow- 
bound. As we read the poem, however, we are com- 
pelled to think often of the man who wrote it, of the 
conditions under which he was living, and of his feelings 
at the time he was writing it. Therefore we shall have 
to take a little glance at the years and events that 
changed the observing Quaker-farmer boy of the poem 
into the gray-haired man of genius who, nearly fifty 
years later, in the little garden-room of his house in 
Amesbury, lonely even in the midst of the sweet June 
weather, wrote, no doubt with many tears: 

O Time and Change! — ^with hair as gray 

As was my sire's that winter day, 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 



The birds are glad: the brier-rose fills 

The air with sweetness; all the hills 

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; 

But still I wait with ear and eye 

For something gone which should be nigh, 

A loss in all familiar things. 

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings, 



14 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 

By the time Whittier was seventeen years old he had 
written many poems, most of which he had concealed 
in the attic. His sister was in the secret, however. 
She read, loved, and admired these productions, and 
thought her brother wonderful. She examined the 
poems published in the corner of their weekly newspaper 
and decided that some of her brother's were as good or 
better. 

prompt to act, 

And make her generous thought a fact, 

she selected one and sent it to the editor. On seeing it, 
he agreed with her exactly, and published it with a note 
saying that more from the same source would be gladly 
received. This editor was William Lloyd Garrison, 
then almost a boy himself, who afterward became the 
great Abolitionist and anti-slavery leader. He was so 
much impressed that he drove from Newburyport, 
where his paper was published, to the farm, and urged 
Whittier's father to send his son to school. But the 
father decided that his son's poetry would never bring 
his bread. Other poems were sent to the Haverhill 
Gazette, the paper published in their own near-by village, 
only three miles away. The editor of this paper was also 
deeply impressed, and soon he visited the farm on the 
same errand that had taken Garrison there, to urge Mr. 
Whittier to send his son to school. An academy was 
to be opened in Haverhill in the spring; Mr. Thayer, the 
editor, said he would take the boy into his own home. 
So the family decided that if Greenleaf could in any 
way earn the money to go, he might do so. A hired 
man taught him to make a new kind of slipper. He 
figured the expense of the school year closely, and 
made and sold slippers enough to meet them and have 
twenty-five cents left. He entered the new academy 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 15 

when it opened, and composed and read an ode at its 
dedication exercises. He attended for six months, and 
at the end of the time, besides a wonderful development 
and a thousand new ideas, he carried home his extra, 
unused twenty-five cents. Then came a winter of 
country school teaching, and, with the money earned, 
another six months at the academy. 

But now he must decide on what he was to do to earn 
a living. His poetry brought no income, he was not 
strong enough for heavy work on the farm, he could 
not go to college without going in debt or drawing too 
heavily on the home folks. An offer of editorial work 
in the city of Boston came, and he accepted it. He was 
only twenty-two years old; his whole life had been 
spent on the farm with the exception of the time spent 
in study at the academy. With little access to libraries 
and almost no association with literary people, his suc- 
cess in poetry and in editorial work at his age has been 
looked upon as almost miraculous. His editorial work 
brought him into connection with politics, and he proved 
to be a shrewd and able political leader. His success 
in this line made him ambitious to go farther. But as 
a Quaker and the son of his mother the tendency to be 
a reformer was in his blood. When the call came to 
him to join the Abolitionists and work for the freedom of 
the slave, he did it even though it meant, as he well 
knew it would, the giving up of both his political and 
literary ambitions. At that time "All the land was clay 
in slavery's hand." None but obscure abolition papers 
would publish his poems ; as an Abolitionist he could 
not hope to be elected to ofi&ce, for all over the country 
they were far more hated than even anarchists are now. 

Whittier was twenty-five years old when he joined 
the Abolitionists. From that time till the close of the 



l6 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

Civil War, almost till the time of the writing of "Snow- 
Bound," battling with ill-health and poverty, he gave 
his time, influence, and genius to the work of helping 
the American people to see the wickedness of slavery. 
He was censured, he was derided, he was mobbed. At 
one time, in the city of Philadelphia, the building in 
which his publishing office was located was burned to 
the ground. Yet he worked steadily on. He wrote 
much, both in prose and poetry, for the freedom of the 
slave; he agitated, lectured, lobbied, edited papers, 
used his influence in politics. This influence was great 
enough to secure, in 1865, his election to the Massa- 
chusetts legislature. He served one term and was 
re-elected, but ill-health compelled him to resign. 

The first change in the snow-bound family, save the 
gradual ones made by time, was the death, four or five 
years after the time of the scene of the poem, of the 
much-loved Uncle Moses. The father's death followed 
in 1830, when Whittier was only twenty- three. His 
sister Mary married and moved into a home of her own, 
also his brother Franklin. This left Whittier the care 
and companionship of his mother, sister, and aunt. In 
1836 the farm was sold, and the family moved to Ames- 
bury. Whittier never married. Owing to his ill-health 
and his devotion to an unpopular cause, they were com- 
pelled to practice the strictest economy, but they all 
did it cheerfully for the sake of the cause. 

In 1857 the mother died. This sorrow was added 
to by indications of the oncoming of the bloody and 
dreadful Civil War. As a Quaker, Whittier had always 
abhorred war. His whole life had been devoted to the 
effort to help educate the American people up to the 
point of voluntarily freeing the slaves, because they 
should come to see that it was right and best. In i860, 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 17 

about the time the great struggle was beginning, his sister 
Mary died. Four years later, while it was still going 
on, even before there came the joyful "clang of bell 
and roar of gun" that announced the freedom of the 
slaves, his cherished companion and loved sister Eliza- 
beth passed away. Her death occurred in September, 
1864. In a few months the war was over, and the next 
June, when "brier and harebell bloomed again, " Whittier 
was, in memory, living over the old days of the life on 
the farm, and writing " Snow-Bound " in loving " memory 
of the household it describes." 



COMMENTS 

"The love of liberty will not die out in the land while 
the youth of America learn and love the verse of the 
poet who combines the lofty inspiration of David with 
the sweet simplicity of Burns. " — G. F. Hoar. 

"He pitied with brave words that echo yet, 
Th' old soldier, prisoned for a paltry debt; 
He helped to give a new and honored place 
To an unjustly subjugated race; 
And though of peaceful lineage and creed. 
Yet he could fight when conflict was the need; 
And he could mould the silver of his song 
In solid shot, to hurl 'gainst shame and wrong; 
And tyrants fell, and fetters burst in twain. 
Before the fierce artillery of his brain." 

— ^WiLL Carleton 

"He had the touch of genius which transfigures 
common things. He sang of what he knew, the fields 
where he played as a boy, the river and the hills he had 
gazed on in childhood, the men and women who had 
grown up about him, the thoughts and the sentiments 
he and they had inherited together." 

"This poem of New England was seen at once to be 
worthy of comparison with the * Deserted Village' 
and with the 'Cotter's Saturday Night,' with more of 
the real flavor of the soil than Goldsmith's lines, and 
with less breadth, but no less elevation, than Burns's. 
It was received by the reading public as no other poem 
since Longfellow's 'Evangeline' and 'Hiawatha.' It 
i8 



I 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 19 

was so profitable that for the first tune in his life — and 
ke was then nearly sixty — ^Whittier was placed above 
want." — ^Brander Matthews. 

WHTTTIER AS A FARMER 

"A farmer's son, 
Proud of field-lore and harvest craft and feeling 
All their fine possibilities, how rich 
And restful even poverty and toil 
Become when beauty, harmony and love 
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat 
At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man 
Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock 
The symbol of a Christian chivalry." 

— Whittier's Prelude to "Among the Hills." 

"Out of doors the boy took his share of the farm 
duties, indeed too great a share, he afterward found, for 
his health. Inheriting the tall figure of his predecessors, 
he did not inherit their full strength; he was always 
engaged, like them, in subduing the wilderness; he had 
to face the cold of winter weather in what would now 
be called insufficient clothing; it was before that time 
when, in Miss Sedgwick's phrase, the Goddess of Health 
held out warm clothing to everybody. The barn, as 
Whittier himself afterward said, had no doors: the 
wind whistled through, and snow drifted on its floors 
for more than a century. There Whittier milked seven 
cows, and tended a horse, two oxen, and some sheep." — 
From Higginson's Life of Whittier. 

"My ancestors since 1640 have been farmers in Essex 
County. I was early initiated into the mysteries of 
farming, and worked faithfully on the old Haverhill 
homestead until, at the age of thirty years, I was com- 
pelled to leave it, greatly to my regret. Ever since, if 



20 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

I have ever envied anybody, it has been the hale, strong 
farmer." — Quoted from Whittier, in Pickard's Life oj 
Whittier. 

THE HOME AND ITS INMATES 

"His house was one of the most delightful I ever 
knew, situated in a green valley, where was a laughing 
brook, fine old trees, hills near-by, and no end of wild 
flowers. 

"The home was exceptionally charming on account 
of the character of its inmates. His father was a sen- 
sible and estimable man, his mother was serene, digni- 
fied, benevolent — a woman to honour and revere. His 
aunt, Mercy Hussey, was an incarnation of gracefulness 
and graciousness, of refinement and playfulness, an 
ideal lady. His sister Elizabeth shared his poetic gifts, 
was a sweet rare person, devoted to her family and 
friends, kind to everyone, full of love for all beautiful 
things, and so merry, when in good health, her com- 
panionship was always exhilarating. She was deeply 
religious, and so were they all." — From a letter by Miss 
Minot given in Higginson's Life oj Whittier. 

PERSONAL APPEARANCE IN YOUTH 

"He was a very handsome, distinguished-looking 
young man. His eyes were remarkably beautiful. He 
was tall, slight, and very erect, a bashful youth, but 
never awkward." — Quoted from Miss Minot in Higgin- 
son's Life oj Whittier. 



SNOW-BOUND 
A WINTER IDYL 

TO THE MEMORY OF 
THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES 

This Poem is Dedicated by the Author 

"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so 
Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not 
only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common 
Wood Fire; and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark 
spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same." — Cor. 
Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I, chap. v. 

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end, 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the house-mates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." — Emerson. 

The sun that brief December day 

Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 

And, darkly circled, gave at noon 

A sadder light than waning moon. 

Slow tracing down the thickening sky S 

Its mute and ominous prophecy, 

A portent seeming less than threat, 

It sank from sight before it set. 

A chill no coat, however stout. 

Of homespun stufif could quite shut out, lo 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold. 



22 WHITTIEKS "SNOW-BOUND" 

That checked, mid- vein, the circling race 
Of life-blood in the sharpened face. 
The coming of the snow-storm told. 
The wind blew east; we heard the roar 15 

Of Ocean on his wintry shore. 
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 
Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores — 
Brought in the wood from out-of-doors, 20 

Littered the stalls, and from the mows 
Raked down the herd's grass for the cows: 
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; 
And, sharply clashing horn on horn. 
Impatient down the stanchion rows 25 

The cattle shake their walnut bows: 
While, peering from his early perch 
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch. 
The cock his crested helmet bent 
And down his querulous challenge sent. 30 

Unwarmed by any sunset light, 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm. 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 35 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: 

And ere the early bed-time came 

The white drift piled the window-frame. 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 40 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 23 

So all night long the storm roared on : 

The morning broke without a sun ; 

In tiny spherule traced with lines 

Of Nature's geometric signs, 

In starry flake, and pellicle, 45 

All day the hoary meteor fell; 

And, when the second morning shone, 

We looked upon a world unknown. 

On nothing we could call our own. 

Around the glistening wonder bent 50 

The blue walls of the firmament. 

No cloud above, no earth below — 

A universe of sky and snow! 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and 

towers 55 

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 
Or garden wall, or belt of wood; 
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, 
A fenceless drift what once was road; 
The bridle-post an old man sat 60 

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; 
The well-curb had a Chinese roof; 
And even the long sweep, high aloof, 
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 
Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 65 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!" 
Well pleased (for when did farmer boy 
Count such a summons less than joy ?) 



24 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

Our buskins on our feet we drew; 70 

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, 
To guard our necks and ears from snow, 
We cut the solid whiteness through. 
And, where the drift was deepest, made 
A tunnel walled and overlaid 75 

With dazzling crystal: we had read 
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, 
And to our own his name we gave. 
With many a wish the luck were ours 
To test his lamp's supernal powers. 80 

We reached the barn with merry din 
And roused the prisoned brutes within. 
The old horse thrust his long head out. 
And grave with wonder gazed about; 
The cock his lusty greeting said, 85 

And forth his speckled harem led; 
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked. 
And mild reproach of hunger looked; 
The horned patriarch of the sheep, 
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 90 

Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 
And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north-wind bore 

The loosening drift its breath before; 

Low circling round its southern zone, 95 

The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 

No church-bell lent its Christian tone 

To the savage air, no social smoke 

Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 25 

A solitude made more intense 100 

By dreary-voiced elements, 

The shrieking of the mindless wind, 

The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 

And on the glass the unmeaning beat 

Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. 105 

Beyond the circle of our hearth 

No welcome sound of toil or mirth 

Unbound the spell, and testified 

Of human life and thought outside. 

We minded that the sharpest ear no 

The buried brooklet could not hear, 

The music of whose liquid lip 

Had been to us companionship, 

And, in our lonely Hfe, had grown 

To have an almost human tone. 115 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 

Of wooded knolls that ridged the west. 

The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 

From sight beneath the smothering bank, 

We piled, with care, our nightly stack 120 

Of wood against the chimney-back — 

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 

And on its top the stout back-stick; 

The knotty forestick laid apart. 

And filled between with curious art 125 

The ragged brush; then, hovering near, 

We watched the first red blaze appear. 

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 



26 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

Until the old, rude-furnished room 130 

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; 

While radiant with a mimic flame 

Outside the sparkling drift became. 

And through the bare-boughed lilac- tree 

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 135 

The crane and pendent trammels showed, 

The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed; 

While childish fancy, prompt to tell 

The meaning of the miracle. 

Whispered the old rhyme: " Under the tree 140 

When the fire outdoors burns merrily y 

There the witches are making teaJ'^ 

The moon above the eastern wood 
Shone at its fuU; the hill-range stood 
Transfigured in the silver flood, 145 

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen. 
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
Took shadow, or the sombre green 
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
Against the whiteness at their back. 150 

For such a world and such a night 
Most fitting that unwarming light, 
Which only seemed where'er it fell 
To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 155 

We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 27 

While the red logs before us beat 

The frost-line back with tropic heat; 160 

And ever, when a louder blast 

Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 

The merrier up its roaring draught 

The great throat of the chimney laughed ; 

The house-dog on his paws outspread, 165 

Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 

The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 

A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; 

And, for the winter fireside meet, 

Between the andiron's straddling feet, 170 

The mug of cider simmered slow. 

The apples sputtered in a row. 

And, close at hand, the basket stood 

With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? 175 

What matter how the north-wind raved ? 

Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 

Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 

O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 

As was my sire's that winter day, 180 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother! only I and thou 

Are left of all that circle now — 

The dear home faces whereupon 185 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. 

Henceforward, listen as we will, 

The voices of that hearth are still; 



28 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 

Those lighted faces smile no more. 

We tread the paths their feet have worn. 

We sit beneath their orchard trees. 

We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn; 
We turn the pages that they read. 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade. 
No voice is heard, no sign is made, 

No step is on the conscious floor! 
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust 
(Since He who knows our need is just). 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress- trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away. 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful, marbles play! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 

And Love can never lose its own ! 

We sped the time with stories old, 
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told. 
Or stammered from our school-book lore 
"The Chief of Gambia's golden shore." 
How often since, when all the land 
Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand. 
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 29 

The langurous, sin-sick air, I heard 

^'Does not the voice of reason cry, 220 

* Claim the first right which Nature gave, 
From the red scourge of bondage fly, 

Nor deign to live a burdened slave! ^ " 
Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's wooded side; 225 

Sat down again to moose and samp 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock trees; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 230 

On Norman cap and bodiced zone; 
Again he heard the violin play 
Which led the village dance away, 
And mingled in its merry whirl 
The grandam and the laughing girl. 235 

Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 

Mile- wide as flies the laden bee; 
Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 240 

The low green prairies of the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 

And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 

The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 245 

Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot. 
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old, 
And dream and sign and marvel told 



30 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 

To sleepy listeners as they lay 250 

Stretched idle on the salted hay, 

Adrift along the winding shores, 

When favoring breezes deigned to blow 

The square sail of the gundelow. 

And idle lay the useless oars. 255 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 

Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, 

Told how the Indian hordes came down 

At midnight on Cochecho town. 

And how her own great-uncle bore 260 

His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 

Recalling, in her fitting phrase. 

So rich and picturesque and free, 

(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways), 265 

The story of her early days — 
She made us welcome to her home; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring book, 370 

The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country-side; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 
The loon's weird laughter far away; 275 

We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 31 

Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 280 

The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 

And heard the wild-geese calling loud 

Beneath the gray November cloud. 

Then, haply, with a look more grave. 

And soberer tone, some tale she gave 285 

From painful Sewell's ancient tome, 

Beloved in every Quaker home, 

Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom. 

Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint — 

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 290 

Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 

And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 

His portly presence mad for food. 

With dark hints muttered under breath 295 

Of casting lots for life or death, 

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, 

To be himself the sacrifice. 

Then, suddenly, as if to save 

The good man from his living grave, 300 

A ripple on the water grew, 

A school of porpoise dashed in view. 

"Take, eat," he said, "and be content; 

These fishes in my stead are sent 

By Him who gave the tangled ram 305 

To spare the child of Abraham." 

Our uncle, innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 

The ancient teachers never dumb 



32 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 310 

In moons and tides and weather wise, 

He read the clouds as prophecies, 

And foul or fair could well divine, 

By many an occult hint and sign. 

Holding the cunning-warded keys 315 

To all the woodcraft mysteries; 

Himself to Nature's heart so near 

That all her voices in his ear 

Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 

Like Apollonius of old, 320 

Who knew the tales the sparrows told. 

Or Hermes, who interpreted 

What the sage cranes of Nilus said; 

A simple, guileless, childlike man, 

Content to live where life began ; 325 

Strong only on his native grounds. 

The little world of sights and sounds 

Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 

Whereof his fondly partial pride 

The common features magnified, 330 

As Surrey hills to mountains grew 

In White of Selborne's loving view — 

He told how teal and loon he shot, 

And how the eagle's eggs he got. 

The feats on pond and river done, 335 

The prodigies of rod and gun ; 

Till, warming with the tales he told, 

Forgotten was the outside cold, 

The bitter wind unheeded blew: 

From ripening corn the pigeons iiew, 340 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 33 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 
Went fishing down the river-brink. 
In fields with bean or clover gay, 
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray. 

Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 345 

The muskrat plied the mason's trade, 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 350 

And voice in dreams I see and hear — 

The sweetest woman ever Fate 

Perverse denied a household mate, 

Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 

Found peace in love's unselfishness, 355 

And welcome wheresoe'er she went, 

A calm and gracious element. 

Whose presence seemed the sweet income 

And womanly atmosphere of home — 

Called up her girlhood memories, 360 

The huskings and the apple-bees. 

The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, 

Weaving through all the poor details 

And homespun warp of circumstance 

A golden woof-thread of romance. 365 

For well she kept her genial mood 

And simple faith of maidenhood; 

Before her still a cloud-land lay. 

The mirage loomed across her way; 

The morning dew, that dries so soon 370 



34 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 

With others, glistened at her noon; 

Through years of toil and soil and care, 

From glossy tress to thin gray hair. 

All unprofaned she held apart 

The virgin fancies of the heart. 375 

Be shame to him of woman born 

Who hath for such but thought of scorn. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 
Her evening task the stand beside; 
A full, rich nature, free to trust, 380 

Truthful and almost sternly just. 
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act. 
And make her generous thought a fact. 
Keeping with many a light disguise 
The secret of self-sacrifice. 385 

O heart sore- tried! thou hast the best 
That Heaven itself could give thee — rest. 
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things! 
How many a poor one's blessing went 
With thee beneath the low green tent 390 
Whose curtain never outward swings! 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided mat 395 

Our youngest and our dearest sat. 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes. 

Now bathed within the fadeless green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 400 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 35 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of river calms, 
Do those large eyes behold me still ? 
With me one little year ago: — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 405 

For months upon her grave has lain; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 
I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
I see the violet-sprinkled sod 410 

Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 
Yet following me where'er I went 
With dark eyes full of love's content. 
The birds are glad : the brier-rose fills 415 

The air with sweetness; all the hills 
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky; 
But still I wait with ear and eye 
For something gone which should be nigh, 
A loss in all familiar things, 420 

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings, 
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, 

Am I not richer than of old ? 
Safe in thy immortality. 

What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 425 

What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 
And while in life's late afternoon. 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon 430 

Shall shape and shadow overflow. 



• 



36 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 

I cannot feel that thou art far, 
Since near at need the angels are; 
And when the sunset gates unbar, 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 435 

And, white against the evening star, 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule. 

The master of the district school 

Held at the fire his favored place, 440 

Its warm glow lit a laughing face 

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat. 

Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 445 

Sang songs, and told us what befalls 

In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 

Born the wild Northern hills among. 

From whence his yeoman father wrung 

By patient toil subsistence scant, 450 

Not competence and yet not want. 

He early gained the power to pay 

His cheerful, self-reliant way; 

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 

To peddle wares from town to town; 455 

Or through the long vacation's reach 

In lonely lowland districts teach, 

Where all the droll experience found 

At stranger hearths in boarding round, 

The moonlit skater's keen delight, 460 

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 37 

The rustic party, with its rough 

Accompaniment of blind-man's buff, 

And whirling plate, and forfeits paid. 

His winter task a pastime made. 465 

Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 

He tuned his merry violin, 

Or played the athlete in the barn, 

Or held the good dame's winding yarn, 

Or mirth-provoking versions told 470 

Of classic legends rare and old. 

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 

Had all the commonplace of home. 

And little seemed at best the odds 

'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods; 475 

Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 

The guise of any grist-mill brook, 

And dread Olympus at his will 

Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless boy that night he seemed; 480 

But at his desk he had the look 
And air of one who wisely schemed. 
And hostage from the future took 
In trained thought and lore of book. 
Large-brained, clear-eyed — of such as he 485 
Shall Freedom's young apostles be. 
Who, following in War's bloody trail, 
Shall every lingering wrong assail; 
All chains from limb and spirit strike, 
Uplift the black and white alike; 490 

Scatter before their swift advance 
The darkness and the ignorance, 



38 WHITTIEKS ''SNOW-BOUND" 

The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth. 

Which nurtured treason's monstrous growth, 

Made murder pastime, and the hell 495 

Of prison- torture possible; 

The cruel lie of caste refute. 

Old forms remould, and substitute 

For slavery's lash the freeman's will, 

For blind routine, wise-handed skill; 500 

A school-house plant on every hill, 

Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 

The quick wires of intelligence; 

Till North and South together brought 

Shall own the same electric thought, 505 

In peace a common flag salute. 

And, side by side in labor's free 

And unresentful rivalry. 

Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 

Another guest that winter night 510 

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold, 515 

Strong, self -concentred, spurning guide. 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us, at the best, 

A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, 520 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 39 

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 

Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash, 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash; 525 
And under low brows, black with night, 
Rayed out at times a dangerous light; 

The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 

Presaging ill to him whom Fate 

Condemned to share her love or hate. 530 

A woman tropical, intense 

In thought and act, in soul and sense. 

She blended in a like degree 

The vixen and the devotee. 

Revealing with each freak or feint 535 

The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 

The raptures of Siena's saint. 

Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 

Had facile power to form a fist; 

The warm, dark languish of her eyes 540 

Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 

Brows saintly calm and lips devout 

Knew every change of scowl and pout; 

And the sweet voice had notes more high 

And shrill for social battle-cry. 545 

Since then what old cathedral town 

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 

What convent-gate has held its lock 

Against the challenge of her knock! 

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thorough- 
fares, 550 

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs. 

Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 



40 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 

Or startling on her desert throne 

The crazy Queen of Lebanon 555 

With claims fantastic as her own, 

Her tireless feet have held their way; 

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray. 

She watches under Eastern skies, 

With hope each day renewed and fresh, 560 

The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 
Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 
Where'er her troubled path may be, 

The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! 
The outward wayward life we see, 565 

The hidden springs we may not know. 
Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun 

Through what ancestral years has run 
The sorrow with the woman born, 570 

What forged her cruel chain of moods. 
What set her feet in solitudes, 

And held the love within her mute. 
What mingled madness in the blood, 

A life-long discord and annoy, 575 

Water of tears with oil of joy, 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 

The tangled skein of will and fate, 580 

To show what metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land. 
And between choice and Providence 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 41 

Divide the circle of events; 

But He who knows our frame is just, 585 
Merciful and compassionate, 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is, 

That He remembereth we are dust ! 

At last the great logs, crumbling low, 590 

Sent out a dull and duller glow. 

The bull's-eye watch that hung in view. 

Ticking its weary circuit through, 

Pointed with mutely-warning sign 

Its black hand to the hour of nine. 595 

That sign the pleasant circle broke: 

My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke. 

Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray 

And laid it tenderly away. 

Then roused himself to safely cover 600 

The dull red brands with ashes over. 

And while, with care, our mother laid 

The work aside, her steps she stayed 

One moment, seeking to express 

Her grateful sense of happiness 605 

For food and shelter, warmth and health, 

And love's contentment more than wealth, 

With simple wishes (not the weak. 

Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, 

But such as warm the generous heart, 610 

O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 

That none might lack, that bitter night. 

For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 



42 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

Within our beds awhile we heard 

The wind that round the gables roared, 615 

With now and then a ruder shock, 

Which made our very bedsteads rock. 

We heard the loosened clapboards tost. 

The board-nails snapping in the frost; 

And on us, through the unplastered wall, 620 

Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 

But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 

When hearts are light and life is new; 

Faint and more faint the murmurs grew. 

Till in the summer-land of dreams 625 

They softened to the sound of streams. 

Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars. 

And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 

Of merry voices high and clear; 630 

And saw the teamsters drawing near 

To break the drifted highways out. 

Down the long hillside treading slow 

We saw the half-buried oxen go. 

Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 635 

Their straining nostrils white with frost. 

Before our door the straggling train 

Drew up, an added team to gain. 

The elders threshed their hands a-cold. 

Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 640 
From lip to lip; the younger folks 

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled. 

Then toiled again the cavalcade 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 43 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, 
And woodland paths that wound between 645 
Low drooping pine-boughs winter- weighed. 
From every barn a team afoot, 
At every house a new recruit. 
Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 
Haply the watchful young men saw 650 

Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 
And curious eyes of merry girls, 
Lifting their hands in mock defence 
Against the snow-balls' compliments. 
And reading in each missive tost 655 

The charm which Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 
The wise old Doctor went his round. 
Just pausing at our door to say, 660 

In the brief autocratic way 
Of one who, prompt at Duty's call. 
Was free to urge her claim on all. 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need. 665 

For, one in generous thought and deed, 

What mattered in the sufferer's sight 

The Quaker matron's inward light. 
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
All hearts confess the saints elect 670 

Who, twain in faith, in love agree. 
And melt not in an acid sect 

The Christian pearl of charity ! 



44 WHITTIEKS ''SNOW-BOUND'' 

So days went on : a week had passed 

Since the great world was heard from last. 675 

The Almanac we studied o'er, 

Read and reread our little store 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score; 

One harmless novel, mostly hid 

From younger eyes, a book forbid, 680 

And poetry (or good or bad, 

A single book was all we had). 

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 

A stranger to the heathen Nine, 

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 685 

The wars of David and the Jews. 
At last the floundering carrier bore 
The village paper to our door. 
Lo! broadening outward as we read, 
To warmer zones the horizon spread; 690 

In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvel that it told. 
Before us passed the painted Creeks, 

And daft M'Gregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 695 

And up Taygetos winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 
A Turk's head at each saddle bow ! 
Welcome to us its week-old news. 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 700 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding bell and dirge of death: 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 45 

The latest culprit sent to jail ; 70s 

Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost, 
And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street. 
The pulse of life that round us beat, 710 

The chill embargo of the snow 
Was melted in the genial glow; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door. 
And all the world was ours once more! 

Clasp, Angel of the backward look 715 

And folded wings of ashen gray 

And voice of echoes far away. 
The brazen covers of thy book; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past; 720 

Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe; 
The monographs of outlived years, 
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, 

Green hills of life that slope to death, 725 
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 
Shade off to mournful cypresses 

With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall, 730 

Importunate hours that hours succeed. 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need. 

And duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids; 



46 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

I hear again the voice that bids 735 

The dreamer leave his dream midway 
For larger hopes and graver fears: 
Life greatens in these later years, 
The century's aloe flowers to-day! 

Yet, haply, in some lull of life, 740 

Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, 
The worldling's eyes shall gather dew. 

Dreaming in throngful city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew; 
And dear and early friends — the few 745 

Who yet remain — shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth. 
And stretch the hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze! 750 
And thanks untraced to lips unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 
From unseen meadows newly mown, 
Or lilies floating in some pond. 
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; 755 
The traveller owns the grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 



TIME OUTLINE 

Day I, lines 1-30. 

Evening of Day i, dusk till bed-time, lines 31-40. 

Night I, line 41. 

Day 2, lines 42-46. 

Night 2, between lines 46-47. 

Day 3, lines 47-115. 

Evening of Day 3, lines 116-628. 

Day 4, lines 629-673. 

Days 5, 6, 7, lines 674-714. 

Conclusion, lines 715-759. 

The storm begins at dusk on the evening of Day i ; it 
snows all the evening, all night (Night i); continues 
through the next day (Day 2), and ceases some time 
during the following night (Night 2). 



47 



INTERPRETATION 

As you open the book to begin your study of "Snow- 
Bound," you notice that the poem itself is preceded by 
a title, a sub-title, a dedication, and two quotations. 
Each one of these is put there by the poet himself and 
is intended to tell us something about the poem to make 
us understand and enjoy it better. 

The title. — The word "Snow-Bound" was not found 
by the author in the dictionary, but was made up by 
him for his own use. Its expanded meaning might 
read, "An Account of Our Being Snow-Bound." If the 
poem is to be such an account, it should tell who were 
snow-bound, when, where, and how long, how they 
came to be snow-bound, how they felt about it, what 
they did during the time, and how they were finally 
released. All this the poem does. In fact, the above 
is a pretty good outline of the snow-bound story. 

The sub-title. — A Winter Idyl. A poem which is an 
idyl is a short story-telling poem dealing with country 
life and country people. By calling the poem a winter 
idyl Whittier means to tell us that it is to be a short 
story of country life in winter. 

The dedication. — It is customary for authors, when 
having a book published, to dedicate it to someone 
whom they wish to honor. This is usually done by 
making a statement something like the one Whittier 
makes and printing it on a page by itself just after the 
title-page. Look in several books for a "dedication." 

The prose quotation. — ^Whittier found this sentence in 
an old book which he owned, entitled Three Books of 
48 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 49 

Occult Philosophy. It was written by a man who was 
born in Prussia six years before America was discovered. 
A copy was owned by a sort of fortune-teller or wizard 
who lived near Whittier's mother's home when she was 
a little girl. She often told the children of how she had 
once been allowed to visit the wizard and take a peep 
at this book. It was probably for this reason that 
Whittier bought it. The quotation shows how the 
people of that time believed in spirits, but of course 
Whittier selected it because it says that the light of the 
common wood fire, as well as sunlight, drives away bad 
spirits and makes good ones stronger. 

The second quotation. — Emerson wrote his poem "The 
Snow Storm" twenty-four years before Whittier wrote 
''Snow-Bound." This is the first stanza of Emerson's 
poem, chosen, of course, because it gives, in a few lines, 
an exact outline of what Whittier means to describe. 

Outward form. — "Snow-Bound" consists of 759 lines, 
divided, as usually printed, into about twenty-six 
stanzas. The stanzas are of unequal length, because 
each one contains and completes a unit of narration, 
description, or reflection. 

Meter. — A line of poetry is a group of poetic feet. 
A poetic foot is a group of syllables, one of which is 
accented. This poem is made up of tetrameter lines. 
"Tetra" means four, and "meter" means measure. 
There are four groups of syllables in each of these lines, 
and that is why the lines are called tetrameters. The 
foot is composed of two syllables, accented on the second. 
Such a foot is said to be iambic. Since each line con- 
sists of four of these iambic measures the meter of the 
poem is iambic tetrameter. 

Preliminary. — We are now to go back in time nearly 
a hundred years, and, in imagination, live a week 



50 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

through with this New England Quaker family in their, to 
us, old-fashioned farm home. We must see the big, 
two-and-a-half-story farmhouse with its five fire-places, 
many rooms, and large kitchen at the back where most 
of the family life went on — must see the busy family, 
quick-witted, clear-brained, keenly interested in life. 
We must see their Quaker garb and hear the ''thee'* and 
"thou" of their ready Quaker speech, for they were all 
good talkers. Above all we must see, moving among 
them, the thin, tall boy with the wonderful eyes who has 
developing in him, unknown to them all, the brain and 
heart of a genius. They are a little colony by them- 
selves, living independently on their farm in the midst 
of the closely crowding woods and hills, with not another 
house in sight. On the morning of the day we enter the 
family, the three elder children, Mary, Greenleaf, and 
Franklin, doubtless, according to their custom, help 
with the work in the morning, and then, with their 
dinner pail go off up the north road to school. We 
may think the teacher is with them, as he seems to have 
been boarding at the Whittiers when the storm struck. 
There was no snow on the ground, and the brook was 
not yet frozen over. 

Stanza i. — This stanza gives the signs of the coming 
storm that they noticed all day. There is a gradual 
thickening of the atmosphere shown by the appearance 
of the sun. In the morning it is dull, at noon it is darkly 
circled and duller still, and all the afternoon until it 
disappears it seems to the imagination of the poet to be 
writing on the sky threatening prophecies of coming 
storm. There is a penetrating chill in the air, the wind 
blows from the east, and they can hear and feel the 
beating of the waves of the Atlantic across which the 
storm is coming. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 51 

Stanza 2. — We can imagine the children hurrying 
home from school to help get ready for the night. First, 
came the big house chore of getting in the wood for those 
fireplaces, and what a pile it must have taken! Then, 
across the road to the barn they go, where they feed and 
bed down the cows, meantime hearing the familiar barn 
sounds, the w^hinny of the horse, the clashing of the horns 
and rattling of bows of the impatient cattle, and the 
fretful scolding of the cock gone early to roost and not 
wanting to be disturbed. 

Stanza 3. — This stanza covers in time the whole even- 
ing, from dusk till bed-time. The chores are done and 
the boys seem on their way to the house, taking their 
last look at the weather outside. The long-threatened 
storm begins. Whittier seems trying, in the last eight 
lines of the stanza, to make us realize how hard it storms. 
It makes the night white, it is blinding, the flakes swarm, 
whirl, dance, waver, cross, and recross, as if on wings. 
And soon the window frame is drifted high, and tall 
ghosts are looking in at them from where the clothes- 
line posts had stood. 

Stanza 4. — In the same way that it had begun the 
storm roared on all night. The next morning not even 
a cheerless sun was to be seen, and it snowed steadily 
on all day and was still snowing when they went to bed 
at night. But some time in the night it stopped, so the 
famous storm lasted a little more than twenty-four hours. 
Whittier gives only fourteen lines to its description, not 
nearly so much as he gives to the preparation for it or 
to its effects. But its purpose in the poem after all is 
only to serve as a means of bringing the family together 
around the fire so that we may be made acquainted with 
them. The next morning was a shining one. The 
children seem to rush to the windows and out of doors 



52 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND'' 

to see their new world. In the next few lines Whittier 
seems trying to make us see how strange it all looks to 
them. It was a world unknown, there was nothing in 
sight that belonged to them, the earth was a glistening 
wonder which the sky itself bent down to see — only two 
things were left in the universe, blue sky and white 
snow. They hurry to look where their belongings used 
to be — pig-sty, corn-crib, wall, and wood; but only 
strange domes and towers are there. The brush-pile 
is a mound, the road a fenceless drift, the bridle-post 
wears coat and hat, the well has a Chinese roof, and the 
slanting sweep, with its load of wind-driven snow, 
reminds them of the leaning tower of Pisa. 

Stanza 5. — While the children are still admiring and 
exclaiming, the father thinks of the hungry animals in 
the barn and sounds forth the joyful order, "Boys, a 
path." Hustling on mittens, high boots, and low-drawn 
caps they start out, eager for the fray. From the 
kitchen door they shovel, through the yard, across the 
road, on to the barn, making a tunnel in the deepest 
place and naming it Aladdin's Cave. They are still full 
of vim and fun when they reach the barn, and imagine 
the animals are prisoners waiting to be released. 

Stanza 6. — The chores at the barn are done, the boys 
are back in the house with the rest of the family. The 
poet tries hard in this stanza to make us see how entirely 
cut off they are from all the rest of humanity, and how, 
as the long, lonesome day wears on, the solitude becomes 
uncanny and oppressive. The wind which, during the 
storm, came from the east, now comes from the north — 
it blows and drifts all day and the air is full of snow 
though the sky is clear. They begin to notice and be 
oppressed by the absence of human sounds. Some- 
times they can hear the two church bells from the village 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 53 

of Haverhill, three miles away, but on this day they are 
still. Sometimes they can see smoke rising through the 
woods from some neighbor's house, though the house 
itself cannot be seen; but today not even this sign of life 
is visible. The air itself is savage, the solitude is intense. 
Presently the sound of the wind begins to seem like 
the shrieking of a mindless idiot, the noise of the swaying 
tree-boughs is the moaning of blind things, feeling their 
stumbling way, the drift of the sleet against the windows 
is the beating, ceaseless tapping of the finger-tips of 
ghosts. All the world except the little space around 
their hearth seems under a spell. One sound from out- 
side of human labor or laughter would make things seem 
natural again, but it does not come. Often, too, through 
the day, they mind, as one notices the sudden stopping 
of a clock, that the familiar, almost human, music of 
their brook is hushed, that even the sharpest ear cannot 
hear it. 

Stanza 7. — Whittier is going to show us now that the 
old, old writer from whom he quotes at the opening of 
his poem spake truly when he said that as the celestial 
sunshine drives away dark spirits, so also a Fire of Wood 
doth the same. The day wore on toward night. As 
the sun disappeared behind the blustering tops of the 
high western hills, the making of the big evening fire 
began. The kitchen fireplace, we remember, was eight 
feet wide. A huge, thick, green, oak log was rolled in 
and put in place at the back of the fireplace, on its top 
was put another almost as huge. A "knotty forestick," 
probably also green, was put on the andirons as far as 
possible to the front. The space between them was 
filled with kindling, brush, and smaller wood, and the 
fire lighted underneath. Think of the interest of it all 
to the children as compared with having father make 



54 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND" 

a furnace fire in the basement! They hovered near for 
the sake of both the warmth and the spectacle. The 
red blaze appeared, the white smoke curled up, the 
cheerful crackling began, the walls and beams began to 
gleam in the firelight, the whole big room burst into rosy- 
bloom. They ran to the window, probably one of the 
north ones opposite the fireplace, to see the miracle of 
the exact reproduction, by reflection, of their own fire — 
crane, trammels, and andirons with their Turk's-head 
tops all showing as plainly as in the fireplace inside, and 
they whispered to each other as they watched it an 
old rhyme about the witches. 

Stanza 8. — The poet here seems determined to make 
us realize once more what a world and what a night it is 
outside before allowing us to settle down with the family 
about the fire and enjoy it. We go with the children 
to the eastern window or door of the big kitchen and 
take one long, final look outside. Above the woods to 
the east shines the full moon, the transfigured hills 
beneath it stretch away, dead white, save for an occa- 
sional shadowy ravine or a patch of dark hemlock; the 
snow is still drifting and flashing — the white light of the 
moon seems to suit the coldness and make it visible. 
Beautiful as it is we are ready to go back to the fire and 
be "shut in from all the world without." 

Stanza g. — Now, in contrast, we have a picture of the 
concentrated essence of comfort. The hearth is clean- 
winged. Someone, probably Mary, has taken the tur- 
key wing hanging near by for the purpose and brushed 
all the litter into the all-devouring fire. The logs are 
by this time red with heat, and it only adds to their joy 
to hear the wind, roaring like an animal outside, leaping 
against door and window, only to fall back in baffled 
rage; for, whenever he comes with a greater fury that 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 



55 



fairly shakes the big old beams and rafters, the chimney 
only roars back and laughs the louder. The dog 
stretches his head to the fire, the cat is near by, the 
cider is warming, the apples are roasting, and the nuts 
stand in their basket ready to be cracked. Can you 
imagine whether the children are happy or not ? 

Stanza lo. — Here Whittier tries to show how the 
uncanny, weird solitude has been conquered, the socia- 
bility and comfort and "common wood fire" have 
indeed driven away the dark spirits. It may be cold 
and gaunt outside, the north wind may rave — as long 
as their fire burns they are not afraid, they know which 
will conquer. But just at this climax of the triumph of 
the home comfort over the solitude, the man who has 
been living over the scenes of his boyhood, dwelling in 
memory on them and wTiting of them so vividly is 
overcome. 

Whittier was, as we have seen, living at Amesbury, 
nine miles from the farm, when he wrote the poem. 
Years had passed since he, with his little brother Frank- 
lin, made the path to the barn, helped build the big fires, 
and sat with the family on such evenings as he describes. 
Father, mother, uncle, aunt, and sisters are gone, the 
farm itself has been sold and is occupied by strangers. 
We can almost hear the sobs and see the falling tears 
through the remainder of the stanza. He suddenly 
realizes his loneliness, his age, and how strange it is that 
he should be living on when the rest are gone. He 
remembers his brother, who, though living, is far away, 
and speaks to him in spirit. It comes home to him anew 
that the voices of that circle are still, the faces that were 
lighted by that fire can be seen no more. His thought 
is that his brother and himself may walk in the very 
paths their loved ones' feet helped to make, sit beneath 



56 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUND'' 

the same trees, and hear, as they did, the hum of bees 
and the rustling of corn. Here are their books, even their 
written words remaining; but they themselves have 
vanished. Yet his love for them makes him dream, 
and his faith in God makes him trust that he shall, 
nevertheless, somewhere see them again. This belief 
gives him so much comfort that he thinks with pity of 
those who bury their dead with no expectation of seeing 
them again, who have never learned that Life is larger 
and stronger than Death, and that the loved ones can 
never really be lost. 

Stanza ii. — Here we go suddenly back to the story 
and to the doings of the family around the fire. They 
told old stories, worked out puzzles, told riddles, and 
spoke pieces found in their school readers. Greenleaf 
himself seems to have recited a poem which was a strong 
argument against slavery, and to have remembered the 
lines many times afterward in his long labors for the 
freedom of the slaves. 

Then, oh joy for the boys, their father told them stories 
of the days when he was young. Such a good talker 
was he, and so well did he hold their attention, that he 
seemed to them to really be doing all these wonderful 
things again. He had formerly taken many trading 
trips into Canada, delivering articles useful and neces- 
sary to people there in exchange for game, furs, etc. 
He tells them now about his rides through the woods 
along the shores of Lake Memphremagog, of eating 
moose with the trappers, and samp with the Indians. 
He tells of a trip to the Canadian French settlement at 
St. Francois, and of how, on moonlight nights, the 
whole village gathered for out-of-door dancing under 
the trees, the gay violin leading, and even the grand- 
mothers taking part along with the girls. He tells them 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 57 

of how he had joined merry haying parties of young 
men who, with their scythes, had cut the grass on Salis- 
bury's level, mile-wide marshes near their home. He 
tells them about going fishing. The boys seemed almost 
to go with him as he talked — up the shore to Boar's 
Head (see map), and fishing there, off shore, or venturing 
farther out near the "rocky Isles of Shoals." He tells 
of their keen hunger, of the freshly caught fish broiled 
over drift-wood fires, of the steaming chowder eaten 
with clam-shell spoons; of how, sometimes, when there 
was breeze enough to sail the boat along so that nobody 
had to row, the oarsmen lay on the marsh hay in the 
bottom of the boat while marvelous tales were told, 
sometimes of dreams, sometimes of signs that had come 
true. Some of their very stories their father remembers 
and tells to the boys. 

Stanza 12. — When it comes the mother's turn to 
entertain the company, she never for a minute lets her 
busy fingers rest, but works as she talks, whirling her 
little wheel as she spins the flax, or darning more yarn 
into the heels of newly knit stockings to make them 
wear better. When she was a little girl she had lived 
in a little town called Cocheco, up in New Hampshire, 
near the mouth of the Piscataqua River, so she tells them 
first a story handed down from her grandfather's time, 
one they had doubtless often heard, of a midnight attack 
by Indians from which her great-uncle carried a scalp- 
mark all his life. When Whittier tries to tell us of the 
beauty of his mother's language, he says, "Her phrases 
were fitting and suitable, her speech was rich, it was 
picturesque, it was free — it was unrhymed poetry, the 
poetry of simple life and country ways." In this beau- 
tiful language she relates to them stories of her life when 
a little girl. She describes her early home so that they 



58 WHITTIER'S ''SNOW-BOUAW 

seem to be visiting her there; tells of the old fireplaces 
and the family circles around them in such a way that 
these circles seem to open for the children to enter. She 
tells how she was one day allowed to visit the old wizard 
and take a frightened peep into his conjuring book, 
which was so famous that everybody in that part of the 
country had heard about it. (Do you wonder that 
Greenleaf afterward went and bought the book?) She 
tells how she remembers hearing the night hawks at 
twilight, the boat-horns on the river, and the loon's weird 
laughter far down by the marshes. She, too, like them, 
had lived near a little trout brook, and she tells them 
how she had succeeded or failed in fishing, what kind of 
flowers grew in her woods and meadows, of how she had 
gathered nuts in autumn, seen flocks of black wild ducks 
on the river, and heard the cries of the wild geese flying 
overhead in November. Then, with graver look and 
more serious tone, she tells them stories from some of 
their Quaker books. From a History of the Quakers, 
she gave them accounts of certain brave men and women 
among them, who, rather than give up their faith, had 
suffered death by fire. From another book, a journal 
or diary kept by a saintly and gentle old Quaker sea 
captain, she told them this story of faith rewarded. 
The captain and his crew were far out at sea, and the 
wind had failed. Day after day there was not a breath 
to move the sails. At last food and water gave out, and 
the crew, half -crazed with hunger, followed the portly 
form of the captain with their eyes and muttered hints 
of casting lots to see whether he should live or die. He 
understood, and told them they need cast no lots, that 
unless God sent them food he would willingly give him- 
self to be eaten in order to save their lives. Suddenly, 
as he said the words, the water rippled, and a school of 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 59 

porpoise flashed into view. The captain told them to 
take and eat, for the fish were sent to save his life by 
the same God who sent the ram to save Isaac when he 
was about to be offered as a sacrifice by his father, 
Abraham. 

Stanza 13. — In this stanza the poet seems determined 
to make us see that this much-loved uncle was the most 
satisfactory and delightful companion that two boys 
ever were blessed with. In stanza 11 he made no com- 
ment on his father, and in stanza 12 gave only a few 
words on his mother's gift of speech, but he devotes 
half this stanza to loving and respectful talk about his 
uncle. After telling us that he was " innocent of books," 
he hastens to tell us that he was rich in the learning 
gained from fields and brooks, the teachers that have 
been giving mankind lessons from the beginning of time 
in Nature's great out-of-door school. He tells us that 
his uncle was full of wisdom concerning the moon, the 
tides, and the weather, could tell whether they were to 
have storms or fair weather — whether the coming 
seasons were to be warm or cold, wet or dry. The boys 
perceived that their uncle knew all this because he could 
read in Nature little hints and signs that other people 
never saw, and that in the same way he gained his knowl- 
edge of everything that grew or lived in the woods, and 
understood the language of the animals and birds. 
Whittier honors his uncle by comparing himx to two wise 
philosophers of ancient times, and to an English writer 
of note, Gilbert White, who wrote lovingly of his own 
neighborhood. He praises him for being content to 
live where he was born, and for being proud of his own 
little world. This wonderful Uncle Moses, in his turn, 
told of shooting wild game birds, gathering eagle's eggs, 
of feats of rowing or skating, of marvelous things done 



6o WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

in hunting and fishing, till they all forgot the cold 
weather outside and ceased to hear the bitter wind. It 
was summer time with them, with corn getting ripe in 
the fields, pigeons flying, partridges drumming, mink 
fishing in the thawed-out river; the fields were not dead- 
white with snow but gay with beans or clover, in which 
there were woodchucks needing to be hunted, muskrats 
laying their mud walls, and squirrels gathering hickory 
nuts for their winter store. 

Stanza 14. — Now it is the "dear aunt" whose charms 
and sweetness we must be made to see. In order to 
make us understand how he had loved her pleasant 
smile and voice he says that he still sees and hears them 
in his dreams. He says that though lonely and home- 
less, she was loving, unselfish, calm and gracious, and 
welcome wherever she went — that her very presence 
seemed to fill the place she was in with the atmosphere 
of home. She told them stories of the good times of 
her girlhood, husking-bees, apple-bees, sleigh-rides, 
and summer sails. The incidents themselves, Whittier 
tells us, were commonplace, like a homespun warp in a 
piece of cloth, but she told them with an interest and 
romance that wove into the fabric a woof-thread of 
gold. He says she was still genial and full of faith; 
that life was still beautiful and interesting before her; 
that she retained, even in maturity, the fresh spirit of 
youth. And her life he assures us had not been a bed 
of roses. The years, instead, had been filled with toil 
and soil and care. By saying that she had kept unpro- 
faned the virgin fancies of her heart, Whittier, no doubt, 
refers to the fact that she had cherished her loyalty to 
a lover who died in youth. 

Stanza 15. — This stanza he devotes to his sister 
Mary, and it is well worthy of being committed to mem- 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 6i 

ory as a tribute and a summing-up of character. She 
was near his own age, was his comrade and intimate 
friend. She was the first one to know about his poems 
and never wavered in her faith in his genius. She was 
the one who, "impulsively" and "promptly" and 
secretly ushered in his literary career by sending one 
of his poems to be published. She had married early 
and lived near by, and died only four years before 
the writing of the poem. She sat, he tells us, on this 
memorable evening, busily at work near the stand, prob- 
ably because her "task," whatever it was, required the 
candle light. "A full, rich nature" means a nature 
complete, lacking nothing, full of sympathy and love 
and generous emotions. She was, he says, trustful, 
truthful, so just as to seem almost stern, impulsive, 
earnest, prompt, quick to think of generous things to 
do and quick to do them, ready to do unselfish, self- 
sacrificing things in secret and disguise them by pre- 
tending she was making no sacrifice. In the last six 
lines of the stanza our thoughts are obliged to leave the 
home fireside where Mary sits working by the stand, 
and think again of the writer in his now lonely home in 
Amesbury. He throws the lines into the form of an 
apostrophe, direct address to her, as if she could hear 
and understand. The exclamation points are put there 
to show his strong emotions of love and grief. These 
six lines are almost a review of her life. There had 
been, he thinks, things to bear that had sorely tried her 
heart. There had been hard work and toil, some bitter 
thoughts and things. From all these he rejoices that 
she now has rest, also that she lived so loving and gen- 
erous a life that the blessings of many followed her to 
the grave. 
Stanza i6. — This stanza is the climax of his personal 



62 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

tributes to the members of his family, and, after the first 
six lines, is rather an expression of the grief and hopes 
of the lonely writer than a description of the scenes 
around the fireside. Preparatory to understanding it 
we should remember that he thinks of the little Eliza- 
beth at the snow-bound time as about five years old, 
that she possessed the wonderful eyes which both she 
and Greenleaf inherited from their mother; that through- 
out his life she had been the close household companion 
of her brother; and that he is writing the poem less than 
a year after her death. Sitting among them that even- 
ing as a sort of central figure, he says, she considered 
herself a part of everything that went on, feeling sure 
from loving experience that they all wanted her to see 
and hear and enjoy everything. Whittier dearly loved 
the warmth and greenness of summer, almost above all 
things else he loved peace. A continual summer with 
"fadeless green," and a holy peace enter into his ideas 
of Paradise. He remembers the childish beauty of her 
large, dark eyes and rejoices to believe those eyes 
are now shining with the summer beauty and peace of 
Paradise. The emotion of the remainder of the stanza 
cannot be given in prose, but the thread of the thought 
is as follows: "^e thinks of her as in heaven, and in some 
place of especial beauty as on some heavenly hill, in the 
shade of saintly palms, or near a silvery river's strand, 
and wonders if she sees him and knows what he is doing. 
Only a little year ago, he thinks, she was here with me 
(she died the previous September and he is writing the 
poem the next June), but the snow has for months lain 
on her grave. Now the summer is here again, warm 
winds are blowing and flowers are blooming. I walk 
the very paths through which we, only last summer, 
walked together, see the flowers she loved, and the 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 63 

sod whereon she rested. The birds are just as glad 
as last year, the brier-rose just as sweet, the hills just 
as green under June's blue sky. Yet I look and listen 
for something which does not come, and feel a loss in 
song of bird and bloom of flower. (Now for the last 
sixteen lines he takes the apostrophe form again.) And 
yet, he says, am I not really richer than when she was 
here, for I have now the pearl and gold of these beauti- 
ful memories which nothing can change. And as I go 
through the remainder of my journey of life, coming 
each day nearer to death, I shall feel each day that she 
is near me. And when the gates of death swing open 
for me I shall see her beckoning and waiting for me. 

Stanza 17. — Every school teacher in those days was a 
"brisk wielder of the birch and rule," so Whittier means 
no disrespect by so introducing this well-loved guest 
who occupies by the fire a favored place. He tells us 
this about the teacher. He is young, healthy, full of 
fun, and does not carry school worries home with him. 
His overflowing energy keeps him continually busy. 
The cat's tiger-like shadow he disturbs by putting a 
mitten over its head and teasing it. He uses the top of 
Uncle Moses' hat for a game, sings songs, and, most 
interesting of all, tells of his college life. Whittier 
thinks it worth while to give an account of his life, 
hoping, no doubt, to stimulate other country boys to 
get busy and make something of themselves too. The 
"wild northern hills" where he was born must have 
been truly wild back in those early days. His father 
was a farmer, and their circumstances were much like 
those of the Whittiers. By hard, steady work they 
managed to earn a living; they were never in want 
though far from rich. He early learned two of the 
most important things any boy or girl can learn — to 



64 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

pay his own way and do it cheerfully, and to adapt him- 
self to circumstances. If he could not get one thing to 
do he did another. He could take off his "gown," which 
all men students then wore (there were no women stu- 
dents in those days), and peddle, or he could teach 
school. When teaching he was the right kind of 
"mixer." He boarded round, got acquainted with the 
people, and found the experience droll and interesting. 
He skated by moonlight, took sleigh-rides, went to the 
young people's parties, and took part in their games. 
In the homes he made himself useful and easy to enter- 
tain. He had a violin and played it (perhaps not in the 
Whittier home), jumped and turned somersaults with 
the boys in the barn, politely held the skein of yarn for 
the mother's winding. Students at college in that day 
spent almost all their time on Greek, Latin, and mathe- 
matics. This brilliant young fellow evidently had the 
famous stories of Greek and Latin literature at his 
tongue's end, and gave laughable accounts, perhaps of 
Caesar's wars and marches, or of the famous siege of 
Troy. He spoke so familiarly of the scenes of Greece 
and Rome that they seemed not far away and ancient, 
but familiar and near home. He talked of the Greek 
gods just as he might speak of a Yankee peddler, of the 
classic rivers as of a New England brook, and even of 
"dread Olympus," the home of the gods, as he might 
speak of a huckleberry hill. 

Stanza i8. — Here Whittier shows us how greatly he 
admired and was influenced by this energetic young 
teacher. He was off duty that night, the poet says, and 
seemed like a careless boy, but when at his desk for 
study his whole manner changed. Then he looked and 
acted like one trying to train himself to think, and get 
learning from books, in order that he might compel the 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 65 

future into which he was going to treat him kindly, to 
give him a chance to earn a living, and an honorable 
work to do. Whittier says that the country, at the time 
he is writing, needs many such young men as this teacher 
was back in those days of the storm. The war had 
closed, the Union had been saved, and the slaves freed, 
but many wrongs remained. Young men like this 
teacher, he says, are needed to assail these wrongs, to 
free the spirits of those whose bodies had been freed; 
to uplift all the people, black and white, and free them 
from the ignorance, pride, lust, and sloth that had made 
treason and all the horrors of war possible. They are 
needed, he thinks, to teach that "caste" is a lie, to 
change old customs, to help make the newly freed slaves 
think and act and work like free men; to increase edu- 
cation and intelligence until North and South shall, on 
great questions, think and feel alike, honor the same 
flag, work together without rivalry, and harvest grain 
together in the very fields where once they fought. 

Stanza ig. — I have read that Whittier labored hard 
on this sketch and considered it one of the best pieces 
of writing in the poem. What an observer the young 
poet must have been, and what an impression this 
strange woman, their "half-welcome guest," must have 
made on him that he should be able, after so many years, 
to write such a living reproduction. '^ We are asked to 
notice her lustrous, flashing eyes, that she is not young 
but still shows no signs of age, that her voice is sweet 
and her words so meek as almost to conceal her bold, 
passionate, strong, self-centered, independent nature, 
with will-power towering high over all. We are told 
that though she was there as a guest they were almost 
afraid of her, could only half feel that she was welcome. 
Her speech and manner, he says, were those of the 



66 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

educated and fashionable, and made them feel that their 
own ways and words were homely and plain. We are 
made to see that though she is slender and graceful, yet 
her grace is cat-like and treacherous, that this is seen in 
the movements of her limbs, the droop of her eyelash, 
the gleam of her white teeth, and the flash of her eyes 
under their low black brows, while her quick changes of 
color betray a temper that bodes no good to him who 
shall be "condemned to share her love or hate." We 
see with the poet that whatever she thought or felt she 
thought and felt intensely, that there was no moderation 
for her, that she disagreed like a vixen, and worshiped 
like a saint, that though her hand and wrist looked soft 
and beautiful, it might suddenly become a fist; that her 
warm, languishing eyes might suddenly blaze in wrath, 
and her sweet voice become shrill in argument. Since 
that night, he says, she has wandered far — visited old 
cathedral towns, convents, Smyrna in time of a plague, 
Jerusalem and its surrounding shrines and tombs; has 
journeyed on to Lebanon, and sojourned with its queen; 
and today (while he is writing) she is in the Far East, 
converted to a new faith, and watching daily for the 
second coming of Christ. But the kindly poet warns 
himself and us that we must not judge harshly, because 
we know so little of the causes of it all. We see the out- 
side only, he says, but know not how much is due to 
fate, how much was inherited from her ancestry, what 
causes made her different from others, and mingled the 
madness, discord, tears, and perversities in her cup of 
life. It is not our business to measure and set bounds, 
saying she should have done this or should not have 
done that ; but there is hope for us all, he says, in the 
fact that He who is our judge remembereth always that 
we are dust. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 67 

Stanza 20. — The great evening is over. The huge 
green logs have burned out and are crumbling, the watch 
hand points to nine. Uncle Moses lays his pipe away 
and covers up .the fire ; the mother carefully folds away 
her work and lingers to offer gratitude for shelter and 
a prayer that none may suffer on this bitter night. 

Stanza 21. — The boys go to their cold room and with 
the wind fairly rocking their bedsteads and the snow 
sifting through the cracks across the bed, they sink into 
/delicious slumber. 

Stanza 22.— Now begins the fourth day of the poem 
story. The boys are wakened by hearing shouts and 
fun outside. The "welcome sounds of toil and mirth" 
they had longed for in vain the day before have come at 
last! They look out and see teams coming, men shovel- 
ing, and oxen wallowing through the snow. The pro- 
cession stops in front of their house to get a new team. 
Everybody is liking the fun, cider is passed,, jokes are 
cracked, and the youngsters, to keep warm, wrestle and 
roll down the snow banks. Then teams and men travel 
on, up the windy hill, through the deep ravine, and 
around through the woods, where pine trees, their 
branches loaded with snow, stand close to the road. At 
every barn they get a new team, at each house a new 
man, and at every place where pretty girls look out the 
boys "compliment" them with snow-balls. 

Stanza 23. — Sleigh-bells, and the doctor's rig stopping 
at their door! His message was brief — a sick neighbor 
would need Mrs. Whittier that night. He spoke with 
authority, because he did his own duty and expected 
others to do theirs. It would make no difference to the 
sufferer who was relieved, the poet says, that one of 
the persons giving help was a Quaker and the other a 
Presbyterian. Everybody recognizes, he thinks, the 



68 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

goodness of those who do deeds of kindness for the sake 
of humanity, and do not withhold their help because of 
difference of sect. 

Stanza 24. — The little world of their immediate neigh- 
borhood is partly opened up to them now, but they are 
still kept pretty closely to the house. So the days pass. 
They study the almanac, read again and again their 
little stock of books and pamphlets, their one novel, 
their one long Quaker poem. At last, delayed a week, 
to their joy they see the carrier floundering through the 
snow with the village newspaper. Wonderful is the 
effect. We have seen with what understanding and 
attention Whittier observed humanity. Now we see 
that he reads in the same way. For him, to read was to 
re-live. He forgot where he was. The horizon seemed 
to broaden. He traveled out into warmer climes. The 
events of which he read reproduced themselves before 
him. He saw the Creeks down in Florida, M'Gregor 
in Costa Rica, and (as he might again if he could read 
the papers now), saw savage scenes in the war in Greece. 
The Turk's head at the saddle bow of each Greek as 
he followed Prince Ypsilanti up Mt. Taygetos was quite 
a different one, too, from those that decorated the 
andirons of their kitchen fireplace. They read the 
poem in the corner of the paper, the very corner of the 
very paper where some of Whittier's own poems soon 
appeared. They read the record of snowfall and rain- 
fall, the accounts of weddings and funerals, the funny 
column, the love story, and even the advertisements. 
They felt that they belonged to and again lived in the big 
wide world; the imprisoning snow melted, and what all 
the oxen and all the men could not do, the newspaper, 
the reading, and the power to use the imagination 
aright had done. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 69 

Stanza 25. — The "Snow-Bound" story is done, but 
you must not fail to get the thought of the two beauti- 
ful closing stanzas. . Jt is memory that has furnished 
Whittier with all the material for this poem. And now 
he takes the apostrophe form once more, and talks 
directly to memory. He thinks of it as an angel look- 
ing backward into the past, its gray wings folded, its 
voice a sound of far-away echoes. It has been holding 
its great book open for him to read from. He tells it 
now to close its book, the book in which it hides the 
stories of the past, some of them sad, and some joyful; 
stories of lives that have been lived, of homes that have 
been broken up by death. Even as I look at your book, 
he says, I know that time is swiftly passing, the hours 
come one after the other, each bringing a word of com- 
mand and a duty. So shut down and clasp the lids, for 
a voice bids me leave this dream of the past for the more 
important things of the present. Life now is greater than 
ever before, today is the most important day of the century. 

Stanza 26. — Yet, though my poem is a dream of the 
past, perhaps some busy man of the world, whose boy- 
hood was passed among scenes similar to those I have 
described, may, in some peaceful moment of life, read 
the poem and be reminded, with eyes filling with tears, 
of his own early home. Or perhaps some of the few 
remaining friends of my boyhood days may read it and 
live over with me the old days. And these and other 
unknown readers of my poem may think of me with 
gratitude. As a wayside traveler who may be greeted 
by the scent of new-mown hay from an unseen meadow, 
or by the fragrance of lilies from an unseen pond, is 
grateful for the sweetness though he knows not whence 
it comes, so I shall receive, with head bared in reverent 
gratitude, the thanks of all who read and love my poem. 



QUESTIONS 

How many and what signs of storm given in stanza i ? 
Read the eight lines giving the first sign. Give meaning of 
"waning," "tracing," "ominous," "portent." What figure 
does Whittier use when he speaks of the sun as writing 
a threatening prophecy on the sky ? Read the six lines 
giving the second sign. Why should Whittier speak of 
a suit of home-spun rather than one of any other kind ? 
Read the half -line giving the third sign of the storm; 
the three and a half lines giving the last sign of storm. 

What word in the first line of stanza 2 suggests that 
the boys had certain chores that they did every night ? 
Study lines 19-20 and make a list of the barn chores 
the boys seem to have done, giving each the name a 
farmer would give it now. Meaning of "challenge"? 
Of "querulous"? Does Whittier mean us to under- 
stand that the "querulous challenge" the rooster sent 
down was a crow ? What time did it begin to snow ? 
What word in line 34 shows the force of the storm ? In 
lines 33-36 what expressions show that Whittier is 
reminded by the snow-flakes of bees? Which word 
does Whittier make up? In speaking of the flakes as 
bees he uses what figure of speech ? What figure in 
lines 39-40? Meaning of "hoary"? 

Beginning with line ^3^ i"ead the fourteen lines that 
cover the entire time of the storm. Which lines describe 
the storm from dusk till bed-time? From bed-time 
till morning ? From morning till night again ? When 
did it stop snowing? What word in line 41 shows the 
violence of the storm? Meaning of "spherule"? 
70 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 71 

''Pellicle"? What three kinds of flakes then did the 
boys notice ? Find the dictionary meaning of "meteor " 
and see if Whittier has a right to call the snow-flakes 
meteors. 

Beginning with line 46 read the seven lines that sound 
as if the family were taking in a general view of things 
before looking for particular things. What beautiful 
expression does Whittier apply to the snow-covered 
earth ? Of the strange shapes he sees when they begin 
to look for their familiar sights, which shows most 
imagination ? Which show study of books and pictures ? 

Judging from the frame of mind in which the boys 
prepared to make the path, do you think the father gave 
his command in a' cross way ? What part of the path 
making did they enjoy the better for something they 
had read? Meaning of "supernal"? What shows 
that they were still having a good time when they reached 
the barn ? Is there any doubt this time as to whether 
or not the rooster crows ? What does Whittier call the 
flock of hens in line 86 ? What animal is mentioned in 
this account of the chores that was not spoken of in 
the first account ? Meaning of "patriarch" ? "Sage" ? 
Figure in line 89? Beginning with line 81 read the 
account of the chores, noticing what each animal is said 
to do. Could a man who had never done farm work 
have written the lines? What shows that Whittier 
thought of the animals as having almost human feelings ? 
Answer: He slightly personifies them. They are in 
prison, the horse wonders, the cock says a greeting, the 
oxen reproach them, the ram shakes his wise head and 
stamps. 

How has the wind changed? What word tells us 
whether or not it was a steady wind? To personify is 
to think as having life like an animal or a human being. 



72 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

Whittier personifies the wind, line 94, by speaking of its 
breath, as if it were something alive. How many and 
what other things are personified, or spoken of as alive 
in stanza 6? Meaning of "spell"? Which day of the 
duration of the poem is this one in which they feel so 
lonesome? What, in lines 110-115, made them more 
lonesome? What, in line 117, made the Whittiers 
in their valley always have an early sunset ? Read the 
six and a half lines that describe the making of the fire, 
then stand and tell the class just how it was done. 
How many big sticks did they have, where did they put 
the biggest one, where each of the others, what did they 
use for kindling, where did they put the smaller wood, 
where did they light it ? For what two reasons, prob- 
ably, did they "hover" near? In telling us how the 
room gradually lighted up what four things tell us about 
its appearance? Answer by saying, The walls were 
whitewashed, etc. Meaning of "pendent"? Where 
does he mean that the crane and hanging trammels 
showed, inside or outside ? 

Beginning with line 143 read the twelve lines giving 
the view from the east window of the white coldness 
outside. Notice the expression, line 151, "such a 
world," also, line 155, "all the world." What is there 
in this picture of the outside world in stanza 8 that 
makes it seem good to be "shut in" from it all ? What 
then does Whittier gain by putting in stanza 8? As 
they shut themselves in from this almost terrible world 
outside and gather about the fire they have the comfort 
of warmth. What word, line 156, does Whittier make 
up to show that they also had the comfort of order and 
cleanliness? From what direction is the wind still 
blowing ? In speaking of the wind as roaring in baffled 
rage is he personifying it as a man or an animal ? How 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 73 

have the logs changed in color since we last saw them ? 
What does he mean by the frost-line ? What, lines 161- 
162, shows the great force of the wind? What figure 
used in lines 162-163? Meaning of "silhouette"? 
Of "couchant"? Why does the cat's shadow look so 
large ? "Meet," line 169, means suitable, fitting. 

Beginning with line 175 read the four lines showing 
how comfortable and secure they felt. How many ex- 
clamation points in the remainder of stanza 10 ? Who 
had them put there? Answer: Whittier. For what 
purpose? Answer: To show the reader his strong 
emotion. What sudden change in time and place must 
we imagine between lines 178-179? Answer: We must 
think of a time about forty-five years later when Whittier 
has become a middle-aged man, and of his lonely home 
in Amesbury, about nine miles away from the farm, 
where he is writing the poem. Do you wonder that 
the poet, after dwelling in thought so long on the scenes 
of his early home, is overcome with grief ? Read lines 
1 79-2 1 1, in which he speaks of his grief and loss. Com- 
mit to memory lines 200-211. 

In what four ways, lines 11 2-1 15, did they entertain 
themselves? Which amusements helped the children 
in their use of language and power of expression ? Which 
one greatly influenced Whittier's after life and helped 
to make him a reformer? Read lines 216-223, which 
tell the effect on his life of the poem which he committed 
to memory and recited. 

The father tells of three of the occupations of his 
younger days, of his trips into Canada for purposes of 
barter, of haying, and of fishing. Read .lines 224-235 
about the trip into Canada. Which two lines tell of 
his rides through the big woods along the shores of Lake 
Memphremagog ? Which two tell of his eating with the 



74 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

Indians and trappers? Read the eight lines telling of 
his stay among the Canadian French. At what time of 
year must he have been there if they danced out-of- 
doors in the moonlight? Read the lines which tell of 
the haying. What expression, line 236, shows that the 
father told of the haying so well that the children seemed 
to be with him while it was being done? The rest of 
the stanza is about the fishing. Read the lines that tell 
where they fished (see map). The lines that tell of 
their eating. What word in these lines does Whittier 
make up? The lines that tell of their story-telling. 
What four kinds of stories mentioned? Mention four 
or five things that made the father's stories a good edu- 
cation for the children. 

What two things might the mother be doing while 
she talked? What shows that she was not knitting? 
What was her first story about ? Was the mother her- 
self in this Indian raid? What is the object of "recall- 
ing," line 262, or, what does the mother recall? In 
what kind of language did she tell the stories after she 
had recalled them ? Where was Mrs. Whittier's child- 
hood home ? Give at least one way, line 268, in which 
her early home was like their own. Read the four lines 
which tell of her visit to the wizard. What is a wizard ? 
Meaning of "conjure"? Why was she frightened? 
What three interesting sounds does she remember and 
tell them of? What is a loon? Study lines 276-283, 
in which she tells of her out-of-door occupations, and 
name four of them. In what books had she read the 
stories she told about the Quakers? Tell the second 
one. How is the story of Abraham and Isaac referred 
to in lines 305-306, like the story of the skipper ? 

Read the four lines, 307-310, by which he introduces 
his uncle. Meaning of "lore"? What had been his 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 75 

teachers in the great out-of-door school of nature? 
Read lines 311-323, which tell the wonderful things he 
had learned to do. Where in these lines is it shown that 
it was because he was a close observer that he could 
foretell the weather and understand the birds and ani- 
mals ? To what two great men does Whittier compare 
him ? Beginning with line 324 read the nine lines that 
describe his uncle. To what other great man does he 
here compare his uncle ? What did the uncle tell about ? 
What are "prodigies"? Beginning with line 337, read 
the lines that give the effect on them all of his stories. 
What a good talker the uncle must have been to make 
them forget the cold, imagine it was summer and that 
they were having all these good times! 

Read the ten lines which describe the aunt. Make a 
list of the expressions which describe her. Which one 
shows that Whittier still remembers her with great love ? 
Read the three lines which tell what she told about. 
The three lines which tell how she told her stories. 
Beginning with line 366 read the twelve lines that tell 
why she was able to make her stories so interesting to the 
young folks. Why should anyone, lines 376-377, speak 
of her with scorn ? What does Whittier think about it ? 

Where was Mary Whittier on this evening? Make 
a list from lines 380-385 of the expressions which describe 
her. Read the six lines, full of brotherly love, which 
are addressed directly to her, in which he thinks of her 
as in heaven. What figure in the last two lines of the 
stanza ? 

Read the six lines which describe the little Elizabeth 
and tell her place in the circle. "Held" in the first line 
means considered. The next two lines, which tell where 
he thinks she is. The next four, which ask a question. 
What is the question? Read lines 404-406, which 



76 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

speak of her death and of the time since. She died 
September 3, 1864, the snows of one winter drifted over 
her grave, and now, in the next June, he is writing the 
poem in her honor. Why, then, line 405, should he say, 
*'one little year" ? Read lines 407-422, telling of what 
he does now in the beautiful June weather, and of how 
nothing seems the same to him as before. Read the 
remainder of the stanza which shows how he comforted 
himself in his grief. Find the lines in which he speaks 
of the memories he has of her as of great riches. The 
lines in which he states his belief that they are not really 
separated — that she is still near him. The lines in which 
he states his expectation of seeing her again. 

The first six lines of stanza 18 introduce and describe 
the teacher. Would a teacher now think the first two 
a compliment? What shows that he does not take 
school cares home with him ? That he is young ? What 
four things does he do ? Which one probably interested 
the company most ? Was he a city-bred youth ? Find 
out whether "competence" means just enough or a little 
too much. Why did he learn to pay his own way? 
What ways mentioned in which he did it ? What is a 
pastime? What four things said to have made his 
teaching school a pastime ? Was he the kind of teacher 
young people would like? Why? In line 466 what 
word does Whittier put in to show that the people where 
he boarded were glad to have him with them. How did 
he entertain the whole family ? How the boys ? How 
make himself polite and useful ? How entertain with 
what he had learned at college ? 

What two things, line 484, did he work hard for in 
order to get ready for the future? From line 485 to 
the end of the stanza Whittier is talking of the needs of 
the country at the time he is writing, about forty-five 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 77 

years after the snow-bound evening, and just after the 
close of the Civil War. He thinks the country needs 
many just such young men as this teacher was when he 
knew him. See if you can study out the seven things 
he says these young men ought to do for the people, and 
tell what he means by each one of them. 

Whittier arranges what he says about Miss Livermore, 
the other guest, into four parts. First, he gives lines on 
her appearance and nature, then on her strange travels 
since that evening, then on where she is and what she is 
doing at the time he is writing, then on his pity for her 
and the reasons she should not be judged harshly. Find 
where each part begins and ends. From the descriptive 
lines make a list of all the expressions which tell how 
she looked; of all the expressions describing her nature. 
Write a paragraph on each. Give a full account of her 
travels. Where is she and what is she doing at the 
time he is writing ? Show whether he thinks she is more 
to be pitied than blamed and why. 

For what two reasons does the party break up? 
What seems to be the uncle's job ? For what five things 
does the mother give thanks ? What shows that Whit- 
tier thought his mother almost too ready to sacrifice 
for others ? 

This to-bed and to-sleep stanza has two parts: first, 
the account of what they heard and felt of the wild, cold 
night after they went to bed; second, the account of 
their going off to sleep. Where does each one begin 
and end? In the first part what shows how hard the 
wind is still blowing and how cold it is ? Can you read 
the last part without getting sleepy? Try it, reading 
slowly and making the voice very soft on the three last 
lines. What four soft sounds does he mention? Also 
he selects words that give a succession of smooth, soft 



78 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

sounds. Notice the long vowel sounds and the words 
that begin or end with "5." 

When the next morning comes how long is it since 
they have heard or seen anyone outside the family? 
How many days since the story of the poem began? 
What do they now hear ? After rushing to the window 
what do they see ? Read the four lines in which Whittier 
describes the oxen. What three things make the picture 
so vivid? The two lines that describe their stopping. 
While waiting for the Whittiers to get their team what 
do the men do ? The boys ? What does Whittier call 
the line of teams in line 637 ? In line 643 ? What 
word in this line shows that it was hard work for both 
oxen and men ? Of the three places he mentions along 
which the road went, which was the coldest place to 
work ? Where was the snow deepest ? Where was the 
most easy and pleasant place to work? What word 
does Whittier make up, line 646, to show that the trees 
along the road where it went through the woods were 
loaded down with snow? Why is "Nature" capital- 
ized? Meaning of "subtlest"? Why should the girls 
who went to the doors to see the procession consider it 
a compliment to have snow-balls thrown at them ? What 
is a missive ? 

Later in the day, who is the first one to take advantage 
of the newly opened roads ? Why stop at the Whittiers ? 
In what two things were the Doctor and Mrs. Whittier 
alike ? What was Mrs. Whittier's religious belief ? To 
what church did the doctor belong ? If the Quakeress, 
Mrs. Whittier, and the Presbyterian doctor both went 
through the snow and cold to relieve a sufferer, how 
much difference does Whittier think it makes to the 
sufferer whether they are prompted to do it by Presby- 
terianism or Quakerism? There are some acids that 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 79 

will melt and destroy pearls. Whittier thinks of charity 
as a Christian pearl. What does he think of as the 
acid that destroys it ? What figure of speech is this ? 

"So days went on," that is, as the day above described 
went on, weather cold, roads drifted, once in a while a 
passer-by or a caller. How many such days had to go 
by to make the time up to a week ? By "great world," 
line 675, Whittier means the world of different countries 
and places outside of their neighborhood. How did 
they spend their spare time ? Make a list of the books 
in their library. Who was the author of their one book 
of poetry? The title is given in the notes but what was 
its subject ? The paper which at last comes is a week 
old. Why have they not received it sooner? What 
word, line 687, shows that the roads are still bad? Do 
they read the paper more or less eagerly and intelli- 
gently for having been so solitary? What three 
accounts of exciting things going on in different parts of 
the world? Which one in our own country? Which 
one in Europe ? Which two peoples mentioned are now 
at war and filling the papers with news? From lines 
700-708 show that the paper had in it poetry, weather 
records, accounts of weddings and funerals, a funny 
column, a love story, advertisements. Read the last 
six lines of the stanza, which show the effect of the read- 
ing on their feelings. 

If you were to make a statue representing Hope as 
an angel, you would probably make it of white, its face 
to the front, its wings spread for forward flight. Which 
way does Whittier make his angel of memory look? 
What the color and position of its wings ? The nature 
of its voice ? What bid it do ? What call its book in 
line 719? Meaning of "weird" and of " palimpsest " ? 
Read lines 721-728, which tell what is in this book of his 



8o WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

past. What way does Whittier take to tell us that even 
while he is still looking into the past he knows that time 
is rapidly passing? What way of telling that every 
hour brings something important which it is his duty to 
do? What way of saying that the present is always 
more important than the past? What beautiful way 
of saying that today is always the most important day 
of the century ? 

Although his poem is a dream of the past, what effect, 
lines 740-744, does he hope it may have on some people 
who have spent their childhood as he did, in the country ? 
What other people, lines 746-750, does he hope may read 
and love his poem? To what two beautiful things, 
lines 751-755, does he compare the thanks which may 
come to him from these and other unknown readers like 
ourselves ? In the last four lines of the poem, how does 
he say that he, as a wayside traveler, shall receive our 
thanks ? 



NOTES 

Time of the action of the poem. — It seems impossible defi- 
nitely to locate the snow-bound year. Mr. Whittier probably 
has in mind a particular storm, but, wishing to make the even- 
ing and the week typical, he doubtless brings together events 
and people he remembers so as to make a sort of composite 
picture. The newspaper he mentions is said to have in it 
items of news about the Creek Indians, also a mention of the 
raid of McGregor in Costa Rica. The troubles with the 
Creek Indians extended for several years before and after 
the year 1820, and McGregor is said to have operated in 
Costa Rica in 1822. Mr. Pickard's Whittier Land tells us 
that George Haskell, the school teacher of the poem, taught 
in the Whittier district in the winter of 1823, also that Sewell's 
History of the Quakers, from which Mrs. Whittier obtained 
some of the stories she told, was published in the same year. 
These things seem to locate the action some time near the 
winter of 1822-23 when Greenleaf, the future poet, was about 
fifteen years of age. 

L. 16: The ocean shore was only twelve or fifteen miles 
from their home. 

L. 22: Herd's grass. The same as timothy, named from 
Timothy Hanson, who carried the seed from New Eng- 
land to Maryland in 1720. 

L. 25: Stanchion. The stanchions of that time were made 
of upright poles and a bow of hickory or walnut was so 
attached as to be put around the necks of the cattle to 
fasten them in the stalls. 

L. 33-36: The motion of the falHng flakes is compared to 
to that of swarming bees. The Whittiers kept bees in 
the garden near the well-sweep, and doubtless the children 
had often seen them swarming. 
81 



82 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND'' 

L. 62 : Chinese roof. The well-curb, of course, had no cover 
for the snow to rest on. Whittier once explained that 
a board lay across one edge of it for the pail to rest on, 
and on this the snow piled up in the shape of the roof 
of a Chinese pagoda. 

L. 65 : Pisa's leaning miracle. A beautiful white tower in 
Pisa, Italy, 180 feet high and leaning 14 feet from the 
perpendicular. 

L. 70: Buskins. Very high shoes. 

L. 81 : Aladdin. The boys had read the story of Aladdin, 
or the Wonderful Lamp, from the Arabian Nights. 
Aladdin was a Chinese boy who was presented with a 
magic ring and sent into a cave filled with gold and 
jewels by an African magician who had evil designs on 
him. The magician failed in his designs, Aladdin found 
a lamp of "supernal powers" in the cave, and by means 
of the lamp and the ring grew rich and powerful. It is 
one of the great short stories of the world. Read it. 

L. 90: Amun. The Egyptians made stone images of rams 
and worshiped them as the god Amun or Ammun. The 
ram in the barn stood so still and stared so that he made 
Whittier think of one of those stone images come to life. 

L. 97: Church-bell. When the wind was in the right direc- 
tion they could hear the church bells from Haverhill 
and Newbury. 

L. 136: Crane, etc. The crane was an iron bar fastened to 
the wall of the fire place by a hinge so that it could be 
swung out over the blaze. "Pendent" means hanging. 
Trammels were strips of iron with a hook at each end. 
In cooking, a trammel was hung on the crane, the kettle 
was hung on the lower hook of the trammel, and swung 
around over the fire. 

L. 160: Frost-line. See dictionary for general meaning of 
frost-line. Whittier means here that the red logs sent 
out so much heat they could sit farther away from the 
fire without having their backs chilly. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 83 

L. 168: Couchant tiger. The cat was near the fire and on a 
level with it, so its shadow was large. 

L. 199: Conscious floor. The loneliness is so great that even 
the floor seems to be conscious of it. This is a figure of 
speech called "transferred epithet." The feeling of the 
person is transferred to the floor. 

L. 204: Cypress-trees. An evergreen tree, tall, dark, and 
even more slim and pointed than a Lombardy poplar. 
Its shape suggests a church steeple or a tall, pointed 
monument. Anciently used at funerals and to decorate 
tombs, it became an emblem of sorrow for the dead. It 
is now much planted in graveyards, and in Italy some 
graveyards are surrounded by a wall of cypress trees. 
The star is much used in literature as a symbol of hope. 
So in lines 204-205 Whittier says figuratively that he 
pities one who has no hope of seeing his dead friends 
again. 

L. 207 : Mournful marbles. Gravestones. The breaking day 
or light of dawn shining over the mournful marbles is 
used here as a symbol of the hope of a resurrection. 

L. 215: " The Chief, '^ etc. Gambia is a river in Africa. This 
line and the four quoted lines below are said to be from 
a poem by Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Marton entitled "The 
African Chief." 

L. 225: Memphremagog. Find the lake on a map of New 
England. 

L. 226: Moose and samp. The food referred to is the flesh 
of a kind of north-woods deer, and mush made from 
pounded Indian corn. 

L. 229: St. Franqois (San Fran-swa). The name of a small 
stream north of Lake Memphremagog, and of a French 
settlement on its banks. 

L. 231: On Norman cap, etc. Zone here means waist. The 
bodice was a wide laced belt reaching from the waist line 
nearly to the arms. The French girls wore caps and 
bodices. 



84 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

L, 236: Nearer home. The Salisbury marshes were only a 
few miles from their home. 

L. 242: Boar's Head. A headland overlooking the ocean 
a little north of Salisbury. The Isles of Shoals lie off 
shore a short distance east of Boar's Head. 

L. 244: Hake. A kind of fish. 

L. 254: Gundelow. A heavy, flat-bottomed boat. 

L. 259: Cocheco. A small town, now Dover, New Hamp- 
shire, where Mrs. Whittier had lived when a child. The 
Indian raid occurred in 1689. 

L. 270: Gray wizard. The wizard was a Mr. Bantam who 
lived near Mrs. Whittier's childhood home and owned 
the "conjuring book," of which the poet afterward 
obtained possession. 

L. 274: Piscataqua. A river near Cocheco. 

L. 286: Painful Sewell, etc. A tome is a volume. The book 
in which Mrs. Whittier had read the stories of martyrdom 
she told was Sewell's History of the Quakers. It was 
"painful" because it told of so many cruel persecutions. 

L. 289: Chalkley's Journal. Another book in which Chalk- 
ley, a Quaker preacher and sea-captain, gave a history 
of his own life in the form of a journal. 

L. 305: By Him who, etc. See Gen. 22: 13. 

L. 310: Lyceum. School. 

L. 313: Divine. Make out by inspiration, predict. 

L. 314. Occult. Hidden. 

L. 315. Holding, etc. Cunning- warded, carefully guarded. 
The keys to the woods were so carefully guarded that 
most people never found them. But Uncle Moses had 
possession of them. 

L. 320: Apollonius. A Greek philosopher who lived soon 
after Christ and was beheved to be able to talk with 
birds and animals. 

L. 322: Hermes. An Egyptian priest. The cranes of the 
river Nile were considered sacred. Sage means wise. 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 85 

L. 331 : As Surrey hills, etc. Gilbert White, an Englishman, 
loved his own neighborhood, Selborne, as much as Uncle 
Moses did his. He wrote a book about it in which he 
spoke of his native hills as if they were as important as 
mountains. 

L. 333: Teal. A kind of wild duck. Loon, a diving bird. 
It makes an uncanny noise, sounding like laughter, that 
can be heard for a long distance. 

L. 361 : Huskings, etc. It was the custom when that work 
used to be done by hand, to invite companies of young 
people to come together and husk com or pare apples. 
They worked for two or three hours, then were given a 
supper, after which they played games. 

L. 362: Weaving through, etc. The figure in this and the 
next two lines is metaphor because it assumes a resem- 
blance between the way she tells her stories and the 
weaving of a piece of cloth with warp of homespun yarn 
and woof of gold. 

L. 369: Mirage. See dictionary. The figure in the line 
is metaphor because it assumes a resemblance between 
a beautiful mirage seen in the distance and the fact that 
life as she looked into the future still seemed to her beau- 
tiful and worth while. 

L. 370-371: Morning dew, etc. Metaphor, meant to show 
that in her maturity she still kept her youthful feelings 
and interests. 

L. 392: Held. Considered. 

L. 407-412: Brier and harebell .... the hillside flowers she 
loved. "When we came to Pleasant Valley, he [the poet] 
stopped the carriage at a picturesque wooded knoll, and 
said that here he used to come with his sister to gather 
harebells. He gathered a handful of them which lighted 
up his garden-room for several days." — From Pickard's 
Whittier Land. 

L. 439: The master. George Haskell from Maine, a Dart- 
mouth College student. Whittier greatly admired him 



86 WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

and was much influenced by him. He became a physi- 
cian, inspired many young men to secure an education, 
and helped found several schools. 

L. 454: Scholar^ s gown. All college students at that time 
wore caps and long black gowns. 

L. 476 : Pindus-horn Arachihus. Pindus, the name of a chain 
of mountains in Greece. Arachthus or Araxes, the name 
of a river that rises in the Pindus range, hence is "Pindus- 
born." 

L. 478: Olympus. A mountain in Greece which was beUeved 
to be the home of the gods. Hence it was "dread" or 
awe-inspiring. 

L. 510: Another guest. Daughter of a judge who lived 
across the river in Newburyport. At this time she 
thought she was converted to the Quaker belief, and was 
glad to be among them as much as possible. 

L. 536: Petruchio^s Kate. Kate, a high-tempered lady, is 
the shrew in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. 
Petruchio is the young nobleman who undertakes to 
tame her. 

L. 537: Siena's saint. St. Catherine, a woman who lived 
in Siena, Italy, in the fourteenth century. Her house 
is still shown there, also many pictures in which she is 
represented as feeding the poor and performing miracles. 

L. 550: Smyrna. A city in Asia Minor. Malta, an island 
in the Mediterranean near Sicily. The streets of some 
of the towns, paved with stone, end toward the water 
in steep flights of steps. 

L. 555: Crazy Queen. Lady Hester Stanhope, an English- 
woman, niece of WiUiam Pitt, becoming dissatisfied 
with society in England, went to the mountains of 
Lebanon in Palestine and lived among their half-wild 
tribes. She obtained so much influence over the people 
there that they regarded her almost as a queen. Harriet 
Livermore visited her and, for a time, they seemed con- 
genial spirits. They both expected the speedy second 



A STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 87 

coming of Christ. Two white horses were kept saddled 
on one of which Lady Hester expected to ride with the 
Lord into Jerusalem. When Miss Livermore discovered 
this she thought the honor belonged to herself, and 
they quarreled. 

L. 569: Fatal sisters. The three Fates, according to the 
belief of the ancient Greeks, were deities who had con- 
trol of the lives of human beings; one of them, Clotho, 
decided when they were to be born, another, Lachesis, 
decided how long they were to live, the third, Atropos, 
determined how they were to die. 

L. 659: Wise old Doctor. Dr. EHas Weld, who lived at 
Rocks Village, on the road from the farm to Amesbury. 
He was a lover of poetry and although much older than 
Whittier they were great friends. Whittier dedicated 
his poem ''The Countess" to Dr. Weld. 

L. 669: Inward light. The Quakers depended for guidance 
as to what they were to do or not do upon the "inward 
light" or direct communication from God to each indi- 
vidual. 

L. 669: Mail of Calvin's creed. John Calvin, who set forth 
the beliefs adopted by the Presbyterians about 350 years 
ago. These doctrines were so strong that they are some- 
times said to be "iron-clad." Hence Whittier, in meta- 
phor, speaks of the doctor's beliefs as a coat of mail. 

L. 767: Almanac. Calendars had not been invented. The 
Almanac was indispensable and in many homes was the 
only book. It hung over the candle-stand by the fire- 
place ready for use. It gave information on many sub- 
jects. Poor Richard's Almanac by Benjamin Franklin 
has been called the "masterpiece among Almanacs." 
Those of Whittier's early days were doubtless imitations 
of Poor Richard. 

L. 678: Books and pamphlets. Whittier said that his first 
attempt at poetry was the making of a rhymed list of the 
books in this library. Pickard gives the list in Whittier 
Land. 



FEB 24 1913 



8S WHITTIER'S "SNOW-BOUND" 

L. 683: Drab-skirted Muse, etc. The Greeks believed that 
they were helped to write their poetry and create their 
works of art by nine glorious goddesses called the Muses. 
Ell wood, the author of the long poem on "The Wars of 
David and the Jews," was a Quaker and perhaps regarded 
the literature inspired by the Greek Muses as worldly 
and wicked. The Greek Muses wore graceful, flowing 
robes, so Whittier says jokingly that Ellwood was 
inspired by a meek Quaker Muse who wore a drab skirt 
as the Quaker women did. 

L. 691: Panoramic. See dictionary for panorama. 

L. 693: Creeks, etc. News was in the paper of the Creek 
Indians, who had been driven by Gen. Jackson from their 
homes in Georgia and afterward made more or less 
trouble; of Sir Gregor McGregor, a Scotchman who was 
trying to establish a colony in Costa Rica, also of an 
insurrection of the Greeks against the Turks. Taygetus 
is a mountain in Greece, Ypsilanti was a Grecian leader, 
and his followers were from the province of Maina in 
Greece. 

L. 700: Rustic Muse. A poem probably written by some 
aspiring poet of the vicinity, hence the product of the 
"rustic Muse." 

L. 728: Amaranths. An imaginary fadeless flower used in 
poetry as a symbol of death and immortality. See Long- 
fellow's The Two Angels. 

L. 730: Sands, etc. See dictionary for hour-glass. 

L. 739: The century's. A way of saying that the present 
day is always the most important day of the year. If 
the aloe blooms only once in a century, the day on which 
it blooms is its greatest day. 

L. 741 : Truce of God. An agreement among the quarrel- 
i/lX, some barons of the twH(th century that on certain days 

no fighting should b'; done. 

L. 747: The Flemish paintings were often pictures of the 
interiors of homes. 



3477-Xd2 
Lot 69 







^-.^^' 



-C 



^. V..' ■''^^;'- ^^./ .«v^'<' %., 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

016 215 384 5 



